Research on Haptic Interfaces and Virtual Environments

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About Us

The Laboratory of Perceptual Robotics (PERCRO) is part of the Institute of Communication, Information and Perception Technologies (TECIP) of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy. PERCRO’s main offices are based in Pisa, Italy, with two branches in La Spezia (Centro Gustavo Stefanini) and Livorno (PERCRO SEES).

PERCRO was founded in 1991 and today employs more than 70 people among PhD students, researchers, professors and collaborators with specific background in engineering and computer sciences (mechanics, electronics, control, informatics, computer graphics) and other relevant social and applied science (economics, medicine, cultural heritage).

VISION

Opportunities of innovation are arising from collaboration of humans with the external intelligent environment that increasingly characterizes modern society. This enriched and reactive environment is embodied in very different forms, such as vehicles, appliances, handsets, virtual environments, robots, etc. It exhibits capabilities well beyond human limilike for example the ones related to accessing and managing vast amounts of information.

MISSION AND OBJECTIVES

To bring these capabilities to fruition, and improve the quality of our life and our work, technological devices must be ultimately driven by human will in the most natural and intuitive way, leaving the machine with the appropriate degree of autonomy. Our main objective is to design a natural interaction with the technological environment, by means of an improvement of the traditional human-machine interface based on the sense of sight and hearing. On one side, the realism of the information conveyed to the senses must increase and, on the other, new communication modes must be invented that build on the human ability to transmit and receive physical cues like gestures, force and tactile stimuli. PERCRO’s objective in this framework is to conceive and develop Advanced Interaction Concepts and Technologies for improving the communication between the humans and the reactive environment, with special attention to Virtual Environments and Tele-Robotic Systems.